Pete Rose

Dowd releases documents that prove Rose bet on baseball while an active player, including copies of pages from a notebook from the home of Bertolini during a raid by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in 1989. The notebook is currently in the National Archives’ New York office, where officials decline requests to release it. Dowd:

This does it. This closes the door…We knew that [Bertolini] recorded the bets, and that he bet himself, but we never had his records. We tried to get them. He refused to give them to us. This is the final piece of the puzzle on a New York betting operation with organized crime. And, of course, [Rose] betting while he was a player. Bertolini nails down the connection to organized crime on Long Island and New York. And that is a very powerful problem…The implications for baseball are terrible. [The mob] had a mortgage on Pete while he was a player and manager.

Rose:

Since we submitted the application earlier this year, we committed to MLB that we would not comment on specific matters relating to reinstatement. I need to maintain that. To be sure, I’m eager to sit down with [MLB commissioner Rob] Manfred to address my entire history — the good and the bad — and my long personal journey since baseball. That meeting likely will come sometime after the All-Star break. Therefore at this point, it’s not appropriate to comment on any specifics. Bertolini’s lawyer, Nicholas De Feis, said his client is not interested in speaking to anyone about these issues.

Manfred says he has received a formal request from Rose that asks for Rose’s lifetime ban to be lifted. Manfred says he will consider the request ‘on its merits.’

I want to make sure I understand all of the details of the Dowd Report and Commissioner [Bart] Giamatti’s decision and the agreement that was ultimately reached. I want to hear what Pete has to say, and I’ll make a decision once I’ve done that.

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